So many candidates, so little time— and sometimes all of them look like a perfect fit for the position!
Manual labor is out; with the right tools, you’ll be able to speed up, automate, and elevate the talent acquisition process and eliminate chances for human mistakes and oversights.
In this article, we’ll recommend you just that: a selection of excellent talent acquisition tools, divided into the following sections according to the hiring stage:
- Candidate Sourcing Tools;
- Applicant Tracking Systems;
- Candidate Relationship Management Systems;
- Candidate Assesment Tools.
Here we’ll describe how these tools work, their strongest features, and assess the value for money.
Try them out, mix and match — and let us know if some of these made your life easier. 🪶
What are talent acquisition tools?
Talent acquisition tools are technologies, platforms, or software solutions that assist human resources professionals, recruiters, or hiring managers in finding, attracting, and acquiring skilled individuals for open job positions.
These tools aim to streamline and automate parts of the recruitment process to make it more efficient, effective, and bias-free.
Talent acquisition tools are usually grouped into the following categories:
- Candidate Sourcing Tools: These tools help recruiters find potential candidates on various platforms, including professional networks like LinkedIn or other social media platforms.
- Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS): These tools allow businesses to collect, sort, and track applicants for job openings. They can help manage job postings, store applicant information, and automate communication with candidates.
- Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) Systems: These tools help recruiters build and maintain relationships with potential candidates, even before a suitable role opens up. They can be used for talent pooling and nurturing passive candidates.
- Recruitment Marketing Platforms: These tools help to promote the company’s brand and job vacancies. They often include features for building career websites, social recruiting, and analytics.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tools: AI can be used in various ways in the recruitment process, such as screening resumes, scheduling interviews, and even conducting initial assessments of candidates.
- Video Interviewing Platforms: These tools facilitate remote interviews, allowing recruiters and hiring managers to conduct interviews with candidates regardless of geographical location.
- Assessment Tools: These include personality tests, skills tests, and cognitive ability tests to help assess a candidate’s suitability for a role.
- Onboarding Tools: Once a candidate is hired, these tools facilitate the onboarding process to ensure a smooth transition for the new employee.
- Job Boards and Aggregators: These platforms allow employers to post job openings and reach a large number of potential candidates.
Each of these tools serves a unique purpose in the talent acquisition process and can be valuable depending on the specific needs and goals of an organization.
Find them: Candidate Sourcing Tools
Candidate sourcing tools are used by recruiters and hiring professionals to proactively identify, find, and engage potential candidates for job vacancies.
These tools help to find both active job seekers and passive candidates who may not be actively looking for a job but could be open to new opportunities.
With these, you can target unemployed candidates, freelancers, independent contractors, or headhunt prospects that are currently not looking for new job opportunities.
They might change their minds once they hear your offer!
Here are some examples:
1.LinkedIn + Social Media
Best for: Long-term talent acquisition strategy, employer branding, and authentic connection.
Granted, using LinkedIn to hunt for potential employees still demands some manual labor — but hear us out. LinkedIn has tons of benefits as a talent acquisition tool.
Using automated, tech-powered talent acquisition software shortens the process and makes it easier, but it can’t replicate the authentic communication you get with LinkedIn. People say social media isn’t exactly famous for authenticity, but you’re free to make things different and own the game.
Actually, LinkedIn can do the work for you if you follow these simple steps:
- Join professional groups, follow notable industry figures and your company’s competitors;
- Browse through their posts and comments to discover people looking for the job: you’ll notice the green “Open to Work” rings on their PFPs;
- Go a step further and contact even those who aren’t looking for new opportunities;
- Don’t be afraid to join, or start the conversation! There’s a lot of solidarity among the LinkedIn folks, and your job posting will likely be shared far and wide.
Simple as that.
What’s even better: not even the “hard mode” is difficult: it includes all of the above, with some consistency. Also, when you’re posting on behalf of your company, frame it as a great place to work, highlight the benefits, and candidates will swarm — so you won’t have to chase them as hard, just cherry-pick the best candidates.
2.HireEZ (ex Hiretual)
Best for: Outbound recruiting from all over the web, with solid candidate engagement features.
HireEZ is a rich outbound recruiting platform. It has access to more than 45+ websites where candidates gather (LinkedIn, GitHub, Twitter, AngelList, Meta (Facebook), etc), and uses AI to analyze their data and provide you with potential employees who fit the criteria.
It puts additional focus on minority categories for diverse hiring. HireEZ complies with several acts/standards to protect the candidate data (CCPA, GDPR, SOC 2, SOC 3 + SSO, and MFA, to name a few).
Other notable features include:
- Centralized HR platform with a Chrome Extension — A flexible portal making teamwork and administrative tasks easier.
- Boolean Builder — Boolean Strings enriched with AI precisely define the candidate profile;
- Candidate Engagement — Although the main purpose of HireEZ is candidate sourcing, it also has candidate engagement and scheduling options (email/phone collection, engagement notifications, email tracking and analytics, automated meeting scheduling).
This tool puts special focus on these industries:
- IT/Tech;
- Staffing;
- Healthcare/Non-profit;
- Security and Defense.
Considering all these possibilities and pricing ($149/month for Professional (individual) and Custom for recruiting teams), HireEZ looks like a scalable solution, which individuals, SMBs, and enterprises may find attractive.
3. Hiretual
Hiruetal is an AI-powered search engine that allows recruiters to source candidates using natural language processing and contextual search, making it easier to find the right fit. It also provides market insights and competitor analysis. Moreover, it has features for candidate engagement and relationship management, like personalized email campaigns and follow-ups.
It scans across 45+ platforms and 700M+ professional profiles to provide comprehensive candidate profiles.
4. SeekOut
SeekOut is an AI-powered talent 360 platform that gives recruiters a competitive edge when sourcing for hard-to-find and diverse talent.
It searches not only public web data and social media profiles but also indexes and makes searchable hundreds of millions of profiles from patent databases and research papers.
SeekOut also provides features like an automated Boolean builder, a team collaboration feature for sharing candidate lists, notes, and projects, and diversity hiring filters to improve inclusion in the hir